


thalassophobia

by aude_sapere



Category: CrankGameplays - Fandom, MarkiplierGAME - Fandom, Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Angst, Did I Mention Angst?, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fear, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Graphic Description, Heavy Angst, Hurt Ethan Nestor, Hurt Mark Fischbach, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Injuries, Not Beta Read, Ocean, Pre-Relationship, References to Canon, Sad, Sailing, Serious Injuries, based on a movie, graphic description of injuries specifically, i promise it starts off very nice though, if you read it you will understand what i mean, kind of, this means lots of unus annus references
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:54:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26872492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aude_sapere/pseuds/aude_sapere
Summary: “I just wanna go out on a boat. I wanna go out on a boat, and I wanna face my fears.”“What’s your biggest fear, Mark?”“The ocean.”“What about the ocean scares you the most?”“The bottomless emptiness, the unknowable depths, the crushing pressure, the alien life, the darkness...”
Relationships: Amy Nelson & Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach & Ethan Nestor, Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor, background Mark Fischbach/Amy Nelson
Comments: 16
Kudos: 96





	1. october 5th, 2020

**Author's Note:**

> Based off the movie “Adrift,” which is based on a true story. For those who haven’t seen the movie, I do suggest it. Made me cry.
> 
> Inspiration taken from the Unus Annus video “Ethan’s Relaxing and Totally Normal Nail Salon,” where Mark mentions wanting to go out on a boat and face his fear of the ocean.

Ethan honestly doesn’t remember how Mark even got the idea into his head. He is almost certain it started out as a bit; a funny little joke to keep the fans entertained for the video. Now, exactly _what_ video, Ethan doesn’t remember. But that first, joking mention of it had been a while ago, and Mark just won’t stop bringing it up.

Unus Annus ends soon. They only have roughly a month left to keep posting videos on the channel. But Mark is set on doing this.

“I just, I don’t know, man,” Ethan sighs, bringing a hand up to rub his face. “We already did a week with the Camp Unus Annus thing and I don’t know if the fans-”

“This isn’t about the fans!” Mark argues, leaning his elbows on his knees to peer down at Ethan. “This is about us facing our fears. Going _even_ _further beyond_. And besides, this isn’t something that would happen in the lifespan of Unus Annus. It would take too long for that.”

Oh.

“I- so wait, you just want to go sailing for the sake of it? Not even for content? And...and you want _me_ to come with you? Even though it’s not for Unus Annus.” Ethan doesn’t get it.

“For us to face our fears. You’ve said the ocean scares you, too,” Mark corrects pointedly. He sniffs, looking off to the side. “And I thought you’d want to come. We’d still record, obviously, for both of our channels, just, not Unus Annus. Think _Markiplier Makes_.”

Ethan snorts, looking up at the ceiling. “Yeah, except _Markiplier Makes_ always had Tyler there and Amy behind the camera, and it wasn’t large scale like this.”

“I- why are you fighting me so much on this?”

 _What time is it? It’s gotta be getting late_ , Ethan thinks, blinking up at Mark from his comfy, sprawled out position on the carpet. “I don’t know, man. What about all the COVID shit going on?”

Mark actually simpers at him, cocking his head a little and sounding pleased with himself when he speaks. “I already found an instructor who’s willing to sail with us. He’s tested negative, and he told me to message him about when we want to meet up to learn the basics. We’d be taking his boat, and once we get to Hawaii, we fly back. Easy peasy.”

“Easy peasy,” Ethan echoes, breathing out a long sigh. He flexes his hand and carefully extricates his arm from beneath Spencer’s sleeping form, sitting up. He drags his fingers through his hair, fixing Mark with a firm look. “Are you sure about this? About wanting to go and wanting just me to come with you?”

“There’s no one else I’d rather share this experience with,” Mark says, and the raw honesty in his voice throws Ethan for a loop.

Why? Why him?

“When, uh, when were you planning to go?”

“ _We_ ,” Mark emphasizes, “won’t be going for a while. We still have a ton of stuff to plan, not to mention wrapping up Unus Annus, and the Internet says the best time to go is in June because it’s before hurricane season.”

“‘The Internet says’,” Ethan scoffs, a weak jab of a joke. Mark doesn’t reply.

Ethan chews on his lip, deliberating. He’s tired of always being to one to chicken-out on Mark’s plans. He’s backed out of several of Mark’s ideas for Unus Annus, including getting tazed, and it leaves a sharp, bitter taste of guilt in the back of his throat.

Besides, it sounds like it could actually be fun.

He hums, pressing his fingers into his eyes and rubbing. “Okay. Okay, but I’ll need to ask Kathryn if she can watch Spence. And even if this instructor you’ve been talking to tested negative, I think we should all three get tested again before we go, if we’re all gonna be that close for so long, especially if ‘Rona is still real bad.”

His own words spark a thought. “Speaking of, how long is this trip going to take?”

Mark shrugs. “It’ll depend on the conditions and the route we take, but the estimate is anywhere from nine to fourteen days.”

“Two weeks,” Ethan says. “Two weeks stuck on a boat with _you_.”

Mark rolls his eyes at that, smiling. “Oh please, you say that as if you’re not the annoying one here.”

Ethan frowns, lightly punching Mark’s knee. “I take offense to that, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mark says dismissively, “you take offense to everything.”

“Hey!”

Mark shakes his head, tsking. He takes a peek at his watch. “Alright, Chuckles, I should probably get going. You’d better wake up in time to post tomorrow’s video.”

Ethan allows his weight to roll back, lying back on the floor. He reaches over to scratch Spencer behind the ear. “Why don’t you just stay tonight? I know Chica barks when you get home and I’d feel bad if you wake up Amy. She’s been editing a lot of the videos lately.”

Ethan stretches, tilting his head up to look at Mark. “I still have your shorts and hoodie from a couple weeks ago. And I have a spare contact case. Spare toothbrush, too.”

Mark deliberates for a moment. Then he stands, stretching his arms above his head and groaning. Ethan’s eyes drop to the cuffed legs of Mark’s jeans, the cleanly knotted black laces of his sneakers.

“Alright, but I don’t need the hoodie. You and Kathryn keep this place freakishly hot at night.”

“Ayy, A/C costs money, mate,” Ethan grumbles, slipping into a half-assed Australian accent and slipping right back out of it. “But I’ve got a fan in my room, if that’s better for you. I could bring it down here, it’s not like I use it.”

Mark shrugs. “Or I could just sleep up there, it’s not that big a deal.”

Ethan’s heart does a little skip at that. He blinks, surprised and a little confused. “Oh-okay, I guess I can sleep on the couch, that’s fine too.”

“What? No, I’m saying we can share your bed, man,” Mark says, and he gives Ethan this look like _he’s_ the one talking crazy. “I don’t feel like hauling the fan all the way down here and your couch isn’t all that comfortable anyway. Besides, it’s not like it’s something we haven’t done before.”

 _Have_ they shared a bed before? Ethan doesn’t actually know. He doesn’t think so. Mark’s never been a very huge fan of physical affection, not even from Amy.

But even if they haven’t, they’ve done much more incriminating things, including two separate videos of them painting and drawing the other naked. But those had been for videos and for whatever reason, this just seems so much more... _intimate_.

Ethan cringes at his own usage of the word in his head, shoves the thought away as far as he can. He sits up too fast, his vision bleeding black and his head going light. He blinks away the dark splotches and throws his hand up, making a grabby motion. He channels the small, child-like voice he often puts on during videos. “Maaaark, help me up.”

Mark mutters something, his voice all mock annoyance, but he still reaches down and wraps his hand around Ethan’s, yanking him upright.

“Woah-hoah!” Ethan says, momentarily losing his balance, but quickly righting himself. He looks down at Spencer. “Ah! He has awoken!”

Spencer cocks his head, his tail lifting in a tiny little wag.

Ethan coos. “Aww, what a good boy. You ready for bed? Huh, mister?”

“We going to bed now, then?” Mark asks. Ethan shrugs, voice dropping back to its usual octave.

“Probably should. Tomorrow’s not a film day, but you have your stream with the guys, and I have some stuff I need to look at from Justin. And probably record a little, to be honest.”

Mark nods. “Me too, man, me too. Hey, maybe if you’re not too busy, you can play Phasmophobia with me, Bob, and Wade. We played with Sean last week, it’s actually pretty fun.”

Ethan nudges Spencer off the floor with his foot, and the pup stands, stretches, and trots up the stairs.

“Yeah? I’ve heard some people talking about it. What’s it about?” he asks, making for the stairs himself. Part of him is honestly tempted to drop to all fours and prance up the stairs, if only to make Mark laugh the way he did during the holy water video, but he doesn’t, instead opting to flip off the living room light. The house is plunged in darkness, but Ethan has lived here long enough and Mark has visited often enough that they both know the short way to Ethan’s room.

Mark’s voice drops to a whisper. “So, like, you play as these ghost-hunters and you have to go into a house and detect the ghost that’s in there. You have to look for EMF and fingerprints and if you use the radio, you can talk and ask the ghost questions. Oh, and you talk to each other in-game, so the further you are from someone, the harder it is to hear them. It’s pretty cool.”

“Sounds like it,” Ethan agrees in a hushed tone, carefully passing Kathryn’s closed door. He flicks on his light as soon as he steps into his bedroom, making his way over to his dresser. Next to a framed photo of Spencer are Mark’s shorts and hoodie, neatly folded.

He tosses Mark the shorts and bends down to dig out his own sleepwear. Normally, he sleeps in his boxers, but he doesn’t want anything to be weird, so he opts for a pair of shorts and a soft, worn tee for himself.

The shirt is...his dad’s, maybe? Truth be told, he doesn’t recall when or where the shirt came from, only that it’s comfortable and it hangs down to his thighs, the collar so stretched and abused that it perpetually slips over his shoulder.

Mark’s snort draws his attention.

“You’re literally drowning in that thing,” Mark says, chuckling. Ethan looks down, then back up, shrugging.

“It’s comfortable. Besides, don’t talk about drowning, Mister ‘I-Want-To-Sail-From-California-To-Hawaii’.”

“Doesn’t it at least sound a little bit fun to you?” Mark asks incredulously, but there’s a small hint of genuine curiousness that Ethan only catches because he knows him so well.

“Yeah, actually, it does,” he answers honestly. He fakes a yawn, which subsequently triggers a _real_ yawn. He steps past Mark and walks out into the hallway, ducking into the bathroom and turning the light on.

“I’m glad you think so,” Mark says, slipping into the bathroom behind him. Ethan grabs his spare contact case from the cupboard and hands it over to Mark, along with the solution. Ethan hums and they both quietly finish their nighttime routine of taking out their contacts and brushing their teeth, and Ethan manages to drip a foamy glob of toothpaste onto his shirt, distracted by making funny faces at Mark in the mirror.

“If we die, though, I’m totally blaming you,” Ethan says a few minutes later.

“Pfft, how’s that in any way fair?” Mark protests. Ethan bumps his shoulder against Mark's as he passes him and he climbs into his bed, pulling the sheets up to his chest.

“Cuz you’re the one who’s inviting me in the first place.”

“How does that make me responsible for our death?” Mark scoffs, turning on the fan. The cool breeze hits Ethan immediately, and Mark's exaggerated frown the last thing he sees before Mark flips the light-switch and the room goes dark.

“‘Our death’,” Ethan giggles. “Like we’re one collective being.”

Mark stifles a laugh, and Ethan feels his weight dip the mattress. “Well, you know what Amy always says about us being two halves of a whole idiot.”

“Isn’t that a _Fairly OddParents_ quote?”

“Yes, now shut up and go to sleep.”

“Fine, fine,” Ethan mumbles, rolling his eyes even though Mark can’t possibly see it. He can’t help the goofy little smile that twitches the corners of his mouth. “Goodnight, Papa Bear.”

“Mmm, ‘night.”

A long lull of silence, broken only by the soft oscillation of the fan, and Ethan, half-asleep, has a thought that strikes him out of nowhere. “Hey, which side of the bed do you sleep on?”

Mark doesn’t reply and Ethan thinks maybe he’s fallen asleep. “Cuz I didn’t ask and-”

“-Do I have to smother you with your pillow to get you to sleep?”

“Pssh, you wouldn’t,” Ethan says, though he knows Mark definitely would, even if just to prove a point.

“You wanna bet on that, smartass?”

“Nooo, but which-”

“-God, man, it doesn’t matter which side I sleep on. Is it really that important?”

“Well, I dunno,” Ethan shrugs, staring up at the dark expanse of the ceiling, “I can’t sleep on the right side of the bed. I just can’t. So I thought I’d ask.”

“That’s weird.”

“It is not,” Ethan argues.

“It is,” Mark says. The bed shifts, headboard knocking gently against the wall, and suddenly Mark’s voice is a whole lot closer, louder. “I’ve been sleeping on my left side recently, but that’s just because my back’s been bothering me.”

Speaking quietly like this, Mark’s voice is a low rumble of sound, the vibration of it burrowing into Ethan’s chest.

“Still? Maybe we should do a video of me giving you a massage,” Ethan suggests, and Mark exhales a silent bark of laughter, his breath a warm puff against Ethan’s face.

Exactly how close are they?

“We’ve done enough massage videos, trust me. Don’t need to feed the shippers any more than necessary.”

Ethan squirms, torn between rolling onto his back to put some distance between himself and Mark, and staying right where he is. “Let me just do it, then. Not for a video.”

Mark hums a little, a tired sound. “Mmm, I’ll think about it. Now go to sleep.”

“Okay,” Ethan agrees. After a long hesitation— _why am I even hesitating, this is stupid, I’m being stupid_ —he rolls over onto his opposite side, curling in on himself a little. The fan is making him cold. Thoughts are whirling through his head too fast to catch onto any specific one.

He falls asleep between one breath and the next.


	2. october 23rd, 2020

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY SHIT GUYS- TODAY'S UNUS ANNUS VIDEO ALMOST GAVE ME A HEART ATTACK. IT'S SO PERFECT FOR THIS FIC. THE AMOUNT OF INSPIRATION IT GAVE ME IS UNMATCHED.
> 
> go go go watch it if you haven't! it's called "We Force Mark to Swim in the Ocean (HIS GREATEST FEAR)"
> 
> also! Life Lived Free, by pulltab (Dekka) is a legitimate fanfiction on here and I 100% suggest everyone goes and reads it because it's one of the best fics I've EVER read. The characterization is SO good.

“Can I just be the first to say that this is a terrible idea?” Ethan announces with a small laugh, glancing from Mark to the camera.

Mark makes a disagreeing noise. “No, you can’t, cuz Amy said that first.”

“Wasn’t it Amy’s idea, though?” Ethan asks, glancing back towards the door of Mark’s office. They haven’t filmed up here in a while.

“I don’t even _remember_ whose idea it was,” Mark chuckles. He looks up at the camera, shifts his weight to his right foot. “So today-”

“-Today! We are, we’re filming... _fanfiction_ \- us reading fanfiction.” Ethan exhales through his teeth, shaking his head.

“Jesus Christ, man, are you okay?” Mark asks, his voice thick with amused concern.

“I can’t _talk_ today,” Ethan laughs.

“You take your meds?”

“Probably not,” Ethan shrugs.

“You know, you’re setting a bad example for the viewers.”

Ethan leans towards the camera and adjusts it to zoom in on his face. He makes a face of exaggerated anger, baring his teeth. “Hey, listen up, _fuckers_ , you better take your fucking meds, got it?”

Mark’s stifled laughter breaks Ethan from the serious persona, and he’s grinning when he returns the camera to its usual distance.

“So, fanfiction. Ethan, you’ve read fanfiction before on your channel,” Mark says, and Ethan bobs his head.

“Yup, Brian and I went on Wattpad and read some vore stuff about a year ago.”

Mark pulls a face of pure disgust and Ethan makes a sound of agreement.

“It was...an experience, for sure,” Ethan says, grimacing.

“Well today, we won’t be going on Wattpad,” Mark says. “We’ll be going on- what was the website called again?”

“AO3,” Ethan says. “It’s- I’m pretty sure it’s one of the most popular fanfiction sites.”

“Right, AO3,” Mark repeats, googling the webpage and quickly pulling it up on the screen of his computer. “We’re gonna look through the Crankiplier tag and see what we can find.”

“Ohhh nooo,” Ethan whines, laughing a little. “Mark, this is gonna be so _bad_. I hope they’re not all sexual.”

“Mmm, but that’s what makes for quality content,” Mark says, and really, Ethan can’t argue.

“So, we should just start by search ‘Crankiplier,’ right?” Mark asks, and Ethan bobs his head in silent agreement. Mark types the word into the search bar and presses ‘search.’

“Three hundred and thirty-eight results?” Ethan makes a noise in the back of his throat. “I thought there would be more.”

Mark scrolls through the page of fanfictions. Ethan winces upon seeing they consist almost entirely of either porn or pure angst.

“Wait, hang on,” Mark says. “Look, I think that search just includes everything with ‘Crankiplier’ in the _name_. Look, there’s a specific tag for us.”

“Click it,” Ethan encourages, and Mark moves the cursor over to click on the ‘Mark Fischbach/Ethan Nestor’ tag, which is highlighted in grey.

“Six hundred sixty-two, that’s more like it!” Mark whoops, and Ethan leans towards the computer screen to get a look.

“These are sorted by date,” Mark says after a lengthy pause of both of them peering at the monitor. “Maybe we should sort by most popular?”

“We can,” Ethan agrees. “I kind of want to know how many people have read the most popular one on here.”

“How do we change the...oh, there it is.” Mark toys around the with filters a bit and it takes both of them several minutes to realize that ‘hits’ is the amount of people who have viewed the story.

“Aaaaand _there._ ”

Ethan blinks at the screen, then bursts out into rippling laughter. Mark’s mouth drops open and his eyes go huge, and Ethan has tears in his eyes when he tries to speak.

“Fuck- the number one is- it’s called-”

“Holy _shit_ , man, look at these _tags_ ,” Mark says, his voice almost in awe. “I- nope, we’re not reading this. Nope nope nope.”

They do end up reading part of it. Ethan is caught between hiccupping giggles and revolted gasps the entire time, and after two chapters, he suggests they move on to another one.

They skim through several different fanfictions, and Mark narrates the whole time (except anything Ethan finds particularly funny and his character’s dialogue). After about twenty minutes or so, they decide it’s time to find one more and wrap up the video. As Mark is scrolling through a randomly selected page, Ethan’s eyes catch on a tag.

“Wait, stop,” he demands. “Go back up.”

Mark does.

The summary for the fanfiction is short, literally one sentence that Ethan thinks might be a quote, but he still asks Mark to click on it.

“ _Life Lived Free_ , by ‘pulltab (Dekka),” Ethan reads. Mark, after a brief pause to verify that Ethan doesn’t want to read, starts to narrate.

They both chuckle at a couple of lines of dialogue and the writing itself. Ethan particularly finds the representation of his and Mark’s relationship to be amusing, mostly because of the way Mark is portrayed. Sure, the fanfiction exaggerates, but Mark _has_ gotten protective over Ethan numerous times, including several instances involving restaurant orders.

There comes a page break, and Ethan stops him. “So, how do you feel about it so far? Any criticisms, comments, critiques?”

Mark leans back from the screen, folding his arms across his chest and looking over. “So, I do think this is definitely one of the better ones we’ve read. Not, not to like, shit on anyone else’s stuff we’ve read; it’s always great to see people being creative and, you know, being able to make up stories like this is always impressive to see. Every single fanfiction we’ve looked at today, even the sexual ones, they’re all...it- it takes talent to write some of this stuff, is what I’m saying.”

“Personally,” Ethan says, eyes moving from the camera over to Mark, “I think this one captures our _essence_ a little bit better than the other ones have up until this point.”

“Well, I mean, this one is clearly narrative-driven, while everything else was just porn,” Mark points out, and Ethan laughs.

“Yeah, that’s true,” he nods. “But what I like about this so far is the way the characters are written. The characterization is really good. Maybe not _entirely_ accurate to who me and Mark are, but it’s still written really, really well.”

“Yeah, I agree,” Mark says. “The quality of the writing is good too. It flows nicely. And I must say, the author’s got a great representation of Amy.”

“It’s almost scary,” Ethan agrees, chuckling. “You want to keep going?”

“Yeah, but you read this time,” Mark says. “The next bit is from your point of view.”

Ethan reads the next line, then gasps. “Oh, this is from the bug video! Ohhhhh, this is _spooky_.”

“Just keep reading, oh my god,” Mark exaggerates his annoyance by reaching up a hand and rubbing his eyes.

Ethan continues, and he is just about to make a joke when it gets to the part about him having an allergic reaction. His On-Camera persona falters, then drops completely in his surprise. His mouth gets ahead of his eyes and he fumbles over his words, but Mark immediately picks up where he dropped off.

Ethan doesn’t even jokingly act out his parts, just reads his lines when they come and listens to Mark’s voice as he reads.

Mark reaches the part where they get into the ambulance when Ethan cuts him off to speak.

“Okay, wait, before you keep going, I just want to- to say some stuff. This author either has had experience with allergic reactions or they’ve researched it because this whole...the description of it is just really good. Well, not, like, _good_ , but it’s really accurate to the actual experience of having an allergic reaction. I mean, it’s- it’s different. Each person can experience different symptoms, obviously. But just, as a general description, this was done really, _really_ well.”

“And they got the little details about how to use the EpiPen right, too,” Mark adds. “When you use it, you’re supposed to hold it in place for a few seconds, and when you pull it off, you actually do massage the injection site for ten seconds.”

Ethan nods. “Yeah, exactly. And even if you use an EpiPen, you should always still call 911 because there’s always a chance that it didn’t work, or that the person is going to have a second reaction. I actually- there’s a video on my channel from a month or two ago where I talk a little bit more about my own experiences and I demonstrate how to use an EpiPen, if you guys want to check it out.”

“We divin’ back in?” Mark asks.

“Hell yeah, man, I wanna see if I die.”

They read the rest of the fanfiction—it’s longer than Ethan expected it to be—and wrap up the video.

“You wanna to call it a day?” Mark asks, leaning forward to turn off the camera.

“I mean, we can, but I thought you wanted to film the sleepover video today?”

Mark waves his words off dismissively. “We’ll do that later. Besides, are you _really_ in a rush to film that?”

Ethan shrugs one shoulder, smiling. “I think it’ll be fun.”

“You’re purposely gonna be annoying the whole time!” Mark shakes his head. “But no, actually, I thought we could go get a late lunch before our lesson at three.”

“‘L-lesson’? What lesson? What are you talking about?”

Mark gives him a quizzical look. “I thought I told you last Tuesday. I _swear_ I told you.”

“I don’t remember you telling me about any lesson,” Ethan says, though he’s slightly unsure. He’s always struggled to listen.

“Eh, it’s fine,” Mark says. “We’re having our first sailing lesson with Remy. He’s going to be teaching us basic knots, I think.”

Ethan snorts something of a laugh. “Well, I guess it’s good we did that rope bondage video.”

“What, you mean the bear trapping one?” Mark says, scoffing. “There was nothing even _remotely_ sexual about that.”

“Ohhh, sure,” Ethan laughs. “Like we didn’t buy an entire ass e-book for bondage techniques.”

“Well, the Unus Annus money has to go _somewhere_.”

* * *

They ultimately decide to set up in Mark’s living room rather than his studio. While the laptop screen is smaller than the desktop computer he has upstairs, they can sit on the couch and they both have their own space.

The natural lighting is nice too.

The audio and video feed take a few seconds to fully connect.

“Hi, can you hear us?” Mark asks, leaning forward to make the call full-screen. The video is dark and jerky.

“Yeah, I can hear you. And see you. Hi Mark and... it’s Ethan, right?”

Ethan shifts, caught between mild surprise regarding their instructor’s youthful appearance and a certain uneasiness of this person knowing his name when he’s never even spoken to them.

“Yeah. Nice to meet you,” he says, fiddling with the small length of red paracord in his hands.

“It’s great to meet you both as well! So, my name’s Remy, I’m twenty, and I prefer he/him pronouns. What about you?”

“He/him,” Ethan confirms, then he looks over at Mark, who nods in agreement. “Same with Mark.”

“Excellent,” Remy says, clapping his hands together. “If you guys give me just a moment, I... need to move some stuff around real quick. If you have any questions, go ahead and fire away.”

“So you’re only twenty?” Ethan asks, leaning towards the computer. “That’s crazy. How long have you been doing this?”

“What, sailing? I’d say... eight years, I think? I grew up sailing. My older sister taught me everything I know,” Remy says, a proud lilt to his voice. There’s more fumbling on the other side of the call, then the computer screen is still, with Remy’s upper body in frame. The lighting is much better now.

“That look okay? You guys can see me better?”

Mark flashes a thumbs-up.

“Alright, awesome-sauce. So, today’s gonna start off pretty easy. If you guys want, I think weekly lessons would be good, if you still plan on heading out in early June. We have quite a bit to cover before then.”

The lesson lasts for roughly an hour, and they go over some basic terminology, as well as six very basic knots. By the time they’re done, Ethan’s pretty sure he could tie them with his eyes closed, they’ve gone over them so many times.

They say their goodbyes to Remy, agree on the same day and time next week, and Mark powers down his laptop.

“You know, I’m kind of surprised,” Ethan says, leaning back into the soft cushions of the sofa. Mark shoots him a quizzical look.

“About?”

Ethan shrugs. “Just that you still want to do this.”

“You mean because of the swimming video from a couple days ago,” Mark states, and Ethan nods.

“Well, yeah. I mean, I-I know we haven’t talked about it, but you did seem pretty freaked out, and we were only, like, half a mile from shore.”

Mark doesn’t speak for a long time, expression thoughtful. “You know, it _was_ my first time swimming in the ocean. I think it’ll be easier now that I’ve done it. And, like, that’s the whole message of Unus Annus- conquering our fears. I think just throwing myself into it like this is one of the only ways I’ll ever get over it. Does that make sense?”

“I mean, kind of? I just- it’s not like we can just turn around once we’re out there, you know? We’d have to commit. No backing out.”

Mark exhales, shaking his head. “No- I know. I want to do this. It’s- it’ll probably suck pretty bad at first, but I think it’ll be worth it.”

Ethan purses his lips and nods, conceding to Mark’s stubbornness. It’s pointless to try to dissuade him when he’s this set on something.

Mark nudges his shoulder, and when Ethan looks over, he’s waggling his eyebrows like a goofball.

“So, your birthday’s tomorrow,” Mark says, “any plans aside from streaming?”

Ethan tucks his hands behind his head, gaze lazily flitting around the room. “Not really. Not a whole lot I _can_ do, with everything being locked down.”

“Come over after your stream,” Mark suggests. “We can have a movie night or something. Me, you, and Ames.”

“Spooky movies?” Ethan asks, a hopeful lilt to his voice.

Mark chuckles. “Whatever you want, birthday boy.”

**Author's Note:**

> For those unaware, Justin (AKA BuffDaddy) is Ethan's Editor.


End file.
